Fingerprinting of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Enteritidis by ribotyping

OBJECTIVE: To carry out an epidemiologic evaluation of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Enteritidis outbreaks in households and small communities by means of rRNA gene restriction pattern analysis (ribotyping). METHODS: One hundred Enteritidis isolates dating from 1989 to 1994 which could be allocated epidemiologically to different sources or to small community outbreaks were investigated with ribotyping, a fingerprinting method in which bacterial DNA is hybridized with the biotin-labeled plasmid pKK 3535 containing a ribosomal RNA operon of Escherichia coli to determine the ribosomal RNA gene restriction patterns. RESULTS: Four different ribotyping patterns were found with the restriction endonuclease Smal and nine with Sphl. Ribotypes of isolates which could be allocated epidemiologically to a common source usually corresponded. Almost 60% of the Enteritidis infections had the ribotyping pattern Sphl-A. In contrast, this pattern was not found in any of the five Enteritidis strains isolated in 1989. The suspicion that Enteritidis phage type 4 infections are caused by consumption of insufficiently heated eggs is supported by the fact that the ribotyping pattern Sph1-A was found in isolates from eggs and from human specimens. CONCLUSIONS: As patterns Sphl-A and Smal-J appeared in 58% and 75% of the isolates, respectively, ribotyping cannot be used for the differentiation between various outbreaks with these two patterns. In cases where the Enteritidis strains showed less frequent patterns, ribotyping seems to be a practical tool for the identification of infection chains. In addition newly appearing ribotyping patterns can give information about the epidemiologic development of Enteritidis infection.